Clamping Down on the Kaleidoscope of Rio’s Beaches

The mayor’s ban on sales of freshly cooked foods like steak and shrimp on the sand will hit Copacabana beach later this month.Credit
André Vieira for The New York Times

RIO DE JANEIRO — Luis Fernando Bensimon beamed as he looked away from the crystalline waters of Rio’s famed Ipanema Beach, away from the beautiful bodies perfecting their caramel-mocha tans just days before the city explodes with its annual Carnaval celebration.

Mr. Bensimon marveled instead at the plastic orange garbage bins lined up in the middle of the sand, and at the portable bathrooms along the sidewalk — sights he was not used to seeing.

“I have never seen the beach here so clean and orderly,” said Mr. Bensimon, 45, a Rio native who left the city 22 years ago. “It has improved a lot.”

Rio’s beaches, famous as much for their boisterous energy as for their natural beauty, are undergoing a makeover thanks to a “Shock Order” program by the city’s new mayor, Eduardo Paes.

But in the quest for order — a warm-up, of sorts, for the Olympics that will be held here — Mr. Paes is trampling on some storied Rio beach traditions and potentially putting hundreds, if not thousands, of beach vendors out of work in what is one of Rio’s most visible informal economies.

The beach scene is the social hub of the city, the place where many residents pass entire summer days with friends and family. Few here see the beach as a place to escape with a quiet book. Couples canoodle for hours, while the fitness-conscious play ball.

A constant stream of vendors passing on the sand yell out their offers of meat-filled pastries, coconut water and fluorescent-colored skirts. In beach tents, vendors mix caipirinha drinks and dole out massages.

Public spaces define the “soul of the Carioca,” as Rio residents are called, Mr. Paes said. But in recent years, residents “identified so much with that public space that they began to want to use it as if it were their own,” the mayor said.

Citing health reasons, the mayor has outlawed the sale of boiled corn and freshly cooked foods like steak and shrimp on the sand. And for still less obvious safety reasons, beachgoers are prohibited from playing paddle ball or kicking a soccer ball near the water’s edge between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Pets at the beach? Forget about it.

Some Brazilian media have scoffed at the new rules. One newspaper, O Globo, dubbed the new beach regime “apartheid.” But in many cases the city is simply enforcing laws already on the books, said Rodrigo Bethlem, Rio’s secretary for public order, who is nicknamed “the sheriff” by his colleagues in the mayor’s office.

“You can’t think of hosting a World Cup in 2014 and an Olympics in 2016 and not have a city that is ready to abide minimally by its own rules,” Mr. Bethlem said.

Photo

Rules put in place in December prohibit ball playing near the water's edge between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. at Ipanema Beach, above.Credit
André Vieira for The New York Times

But the beach crackdown comes as Rio’s summer is in full swing, with the annual Carnaval celebration officially kicking off this weekend. It is part of a wider effort by Mr. Paes to shape up Rio’s streets, which became more disorderly under previous Rio mayors, said Lucia Hippolito, a popular radio commentator who has a show exploring Rio life.

Cars were allowed to be parked on sidewalks, impeding the police from pursuing thieves, she said. Beach vendors bribed the police so they could leave tents overnight. “No one wanted to do away with the Carioca beach charm, but we needed to apply a little bit of order.”

Since the Shock Order program was put in place, Ms. Hippolito said, listeners have been calling and e-mailing in droves to her show, asking for a similar crackdown in their neighborhoods in the form of tree cutting or street lighting.

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Mr. Bethlem — a 38-year-old economist who travels in a black sedan, wears crisp dress slacks and often has a radio earpiece hanging from his ear — said the Shock Order program, which took effect in early December, is being applied to what he called the “model beach,” a 2.5-mile stretch from Arpoador to Leblon. The plan is to extend the crackdown to the larger Copacabana beach later this month. By next year, the city plans to enforce the program throughout the 25 miles of Rio’s beaches, where some two million people flock on a sunny Sunday, Mr. Bethlem said.

In the program’s first month, city officials confiscated 2,375 items on the beaches, including portable grills, drinks, push carts, clothes and cooking utensils. Shock Order agents also arrested 62 people over the past two weekends for not availing themselves of the 4,000 chemical toilets that have been set up around the city for Carnaval — twice as many as last year.

Solange Lopes, a corn vendor, recalled one scene in late December when a churro seller refused to give up his vendor cart. A Shock Order official threw everything off of it, sending “hot oil flying all over the place.” Glass broke when officials placed the cart on their S.U.V., she said. The vendor has not returned since.

“The people that lose their jobs here don’t have any other place to look for work,” Ms. Lopes said. “Where are they going to work?”

Ms. Lopes, 29, who has been selling corn at the beach for seven years, is now only allowed to sell on the sidewalk after 7 p.m., when the beach is emptier, she said. “The mayor needs to legalize working on the street, give a fixed point to each seller for a monthly fee,” she said.

The mayor’s office has shown some mercy. In the case of mate, a Brazilian iced tea sold by vendors shouldering small metal kegs, the reaction proved too strong and a ban was relaxed.

“I was absolutely radical in being against prohibiting mate, because it is a fantastic Rio tradition,” Mr. Paes said. “The mate vendor was a part of my childhood.”

Carrying his mate and lemonade jugs on Ipanema beach last week, Edivan Brito do Nascimento, 17, said that officials had warned of surprise inspections, and that sellers found to be using polluted water would have their kegs confiscated.

“That is why we are working carefully, sterilizing all of our equipment,” he said. “We are a struggling people from the slums of Rio, and these jobs are a means of survival for all of us.”

Despite such concerns, many Rio residents are applauding Shock Order. “A little order never hurts, even in Rio,” said Mateus Almeida, 19, as he prepared for a surfing run in Ipanema last week. “People are adapting.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Clamping Down on the Kaleidoscope of Rio’s Beaches. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe